


The Curious Case of Dr. Spencer Reid

by skullcandy11



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Psych
Genre: College, Crossover, Cute bois in love, FBI, Henry is not a nice guy in this one, I suck at writing relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Las Vegas, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recruitment, Running Away, Scheming, Shawn and Gus keep in touch, Shawn and Gus meet again in college, Shawn becomes Spencer, planning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2020-10-12 00:42:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20555390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skullcandy11/pseuds/skullcandy11
Summary: When Shawn Spencer realizes he likes boys, that discovery does not go over will with his father. Knowing he can't live there anymore if he wants to live, Shawn runs away, promising his best friend this will not be the last time they see each other. Once he is free, Shawn turns himself into Dr. Spencer Reid. This is his story.Cross posted on FF





	1. The Backstory

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I know I still have another story that is by no means finished, but I have had this one in the works for a while, and I at least want to start posting it. I am going to be switching between posting chapter for this and Finite Incantatem, but don't worry, I am going to do my best to make sure I don't fall behind for almost two years before updating like I did for FI. Anyway, thank you for reading my stories, I hope you all have a nice day!

Shawn couldn’t take it! He didn’t want to be a cop, he never wanted to be a cop, and at the rate his father was going, he never would be! It was a Saturday, and his father had just left for work. The last two days were a nightmare, and Shawn knew he needed to leave.

2 days earlier

He was leaning in, just about to make the moves on the boy in the passenger seat when there was a sharp rap on the window and an outraged “Shawn!” from outside. He flinched and immediately looked over his shoulder to see his father standing outside in his police uniform, and shining his flashlight into the truck. 

Shawn flinched back from the harsh light, putting a hand up to block it out as his father wrenched the door open and forcibly dragged him out of the truck by his outstretched arm. He knew he was going to be in trouble when he stole (read: borrowed) Henry’s truck even though he told him earlier that he couldn’t borrow it to take someone out on a date. 

Meanwhile, his date was, rightly, freaking out because, as far as he knew, a police officer that knew his date by name just physically dragged him out of the vehicle. He freaked out even more when Shawn merely looked dejected, and glanced at him with a pitying look before walking over to where the man was telling him to stand. The police officer used his radio to call for a tow truck, and then he looked back at the passenger in the truck. 

Shawn watched as his father told the boy to get out of the vehicle and head home before starting to handcuff Shawn. He watched sorrowfully through the back window of the squad car as his date asked his father for a ride back to his house because his phone was dead. He knew the next few hours weren’t going to be good as he watched his father fail at hiding his smug smirk as he told his date to start walking, and that this was a life lesson because he should’ve thought about what he was doing before going on a date. “With another boy” was silent, but they all heard it anyway.

His father got back in his car and started to drive away, trusting that his truck would be picked up soon. He was silent the whole car ride, and Shawn just kept getting more and more nervous. He was scared of what Henry would do when he got home, but as his father kept driving, he realized they weren’t heading towards home. He groaned quietly when he saw the police station around the corner, and finally understood why he was cuffed. 

They pulled into a parking spot dedicated to police cars, and his father got out and went around the back and opened his door to drag him out. He led Shawn into the police station, and told the officer at the front desk that he needed to book a suspect and leave him in the cells overnight. The officer made a face when he saw that the arresting officer had his son in cuffs, but Henry had always told everyone that he was a bad kid, messing up in school and not listening to him at home, so they didn’t question him. 

Shawn was led to the booking desk where they did everything except fingerprint him, because, even though his father wanted to scare him, he didn’t actually want to answer any questions about why he arrested his son, and if he wasn’t fingerprinted then he wasn’t in the system. After he answered all the questions they needed to know about him for the report, he was taken to The Cages. 

‘The Cages’ was the term everyone used for the holding cells in the back. They could hold up to five people in each cell, and they were divided by sex. The next cell to be opened only had one man in it, and Shawn felt his father falter in his steps when he saw who it was he would be putting Shawn in with, but in the end he kept moving. 

He hauled Shawn over to an officer he hadn’t met before and added Shawn to the log book before shoving him into the cell with the one man. The officer, a rookie, Shawn realized by the lack of accoutrements on his uniform, seemed uncomfortable with Shawn being put in the cell he was in, but when he looked at the name Henry wrote in the log book next his own as the arresting officer, he shut his mouth. Henry made sure Shawn was locked in, told him he would pick him up in the morning, and then just walked away. 

Shawn looked around his cell, spotted an empty bench, and sat down. Once he was as settled as he could be on an uncomfortable metal bench with no padding, he looked up to evaluate his cellmate, and didn’t like what he saw. 

The man was jittery, a little too jittery, and he had what Gus would call ‘crazy eyes.’ He licked his lips when Shawn made eye contact, and then slowly ran his eyes down Shawn’s form, making him very uncomfortable. The man had stringy brown hair, a little on the long side, and he was tall. His face was narrow, oily and pock-marked, and his bushy eyebrows did nothing to help his look. He had a drab red shirt on that had certainly seen better days, and it had more than a few questionable stains — which was saying something given Shawn was very good at identifying stains. He had on khaki cargo pants with ragged hems, and what Shawn believed to be no name tennis shoes that were probably white five years ago, but now were the yellowish color smoker’s fingers took on after years upon years of smoking. 

An hour went by with the only movement being the man’s tongue as he licked his lips, never taking his eyes off Shawn, and his shifting from foot to foot. Shawn spent his time sitting there keeping one eye on the shifty man while focusing the rest of his incredible brain power on worrying about what his father was going to say to him when they finally got home. 

Then another officer arrived to take the place of the rookie as the shift changed, and Shawn groaned inside, because he knew this officer, and nothing good could come from it. This man was short, squat, and supremely lazy. He didn’t stand when he could sit, and he didn’t sit when he could sleep, especially while on the job. He could also usually be found in the break room dozing next to a half-eaten box of doughnuts, even when he was supposed to be at his post. He really should have been forced into retirement years ago, but he was life-long drinking buddies with the Chief, so his pension grew as steadily as his belly. 

The rookie looked at Shawn as the new officer took over, and when the man merely glanced at who was in the cells before huffing at all of them and walking towards the break room for “coffee”, he stayed behind.

The shifty man got excited when he saw the older man leave the room, and started to move towards Shawn, but jerked to a stop when the rookie officer moved towards Shawn as well, and kept an eye on the man as he settled into a chair outside the cells purposefully close to the fifteen year old. The rookie made sure to keep his hands near his taser as he sat down, and kept eye contact with the shifty man until he looked away and went to sit down on a bench on the other side of the cell. 

Once the man sat down far, far away from Shawn, he moved his hands back to his lap and introduced himself. He told Shawn that he didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone with the man, so he was going to stay with him until either Shawn was removed from The Cages or a competent officer took his post. Shawn knew the next shift change wasn’t until the next morning, but he was grateful, so he didn’t say anything. They began to talk, and kept talking long into the night. The rookie never seemed to get tired, keeping one eye on the man the whole time, and whenever the man shifted, the rookie purposefully moved his hand back towards his taser as a warning.

As the night went on, the stories they shared moved from general niceties, to school, to work, to family, and then the conversation seemed to dissolve at around 2am into completely random topics. They spoke about anything and everything, and learned a lot about each other that night. 

The next morning, Henry came back to collect Shawn, and saw that he was leaning against the bars of the cell whispering to the new rookie on the other side of the bars. They both looked tired, Shawn more than the officer, but they kept talking until Henry stepped up to unlock the doors. He grabbed Shawn by the arm and pulled him out of the cell as he eyed the rookie who had stood up when he spotted Henry. The elder police officer asked him why he was still there, and followed that with a lecture on going home and actually doing productive things, like sleeping, instead of wasting time on Shawn, not letting the rookie get a word in edgewise. Once he finished talking, he hauled Shawn out of the station, blind to the glare the young officer leveled at his back, more specifically, the tight grip he had on his son’s arm. 

Shawn’s father drove him to school in his squad car and dropped him off. When Shawn told him that he needed his backpack (that was still in the truck) because he had two tests today that he needed to look at his notes for, and had homework due in every class, Henry merely shrugged and told him he should have thought about that before he went out on a school night. 

That day was a bad one because his date from the night before completely avoided him, going so far as to turn the other way when he saw Shawn walking down the hall. He got weird looks for wearing the same clothes as the day before, and he got sent to the Principal’s office by all of his teachers to be yelled at when he told them that he didn’t have his homework to turn in. None of his teachers really liked him because he never seemed to pay attention in class, and rarely turned in his homework, but he always aced their tests, so they liked to take it out on him by sending him to the Principal’s office for every violation so it would turn up on his school record. He also avoided Gus that day, which was even harder because he usually couldn’t go a day without talking to his best friend and secret crush. 

He took the bus home after school, and immediately went upstairs to take a shower because he stank of prison B.O. After that, he decided he should probably make it up to his teachers, so he emailed his homework to those that he knew would accept it, and decided to actually do and turn in all of his homework for the next week. He felt that he had been slipping these last few weeks, worrying on hiding his crush from Gus and how he was going to tell Henry he thought he was gay. Well, at least one of his problems was taken care of. Kind of hard to think your kid is straight when you catch them about to kiss another boy. 

When 8pm rolled around he heard his father pull into the driveway, and he nervously watched from his window as he got out of his car and stalked into the house. He winced when he heard the door slam, and cringed when his father bellowed out an angry, “SHAWN! Get you ass down here now!”

As he made his way downstairs, he braced himself for a lot of yelling, and was therefore caught completely off guard when Henry clipped him on the side of his face as he stepped off the last stair, and fell to the ground from the strength of the blow. He was dazed and started to dissociate as his father hauled him up by his collar and started to rain punches down on his body, all the while screaming something about gays and fags. His father had never hit him before, only yelled and slammed his hands on tables, so all of this was a shock. 

His father dropped him on the floor again and kicked him a few more times before crouching down in front of his son. He grabbed Shawn’s face and slapped it a few times until Shawn managed to look into his eyes before he whispered, shaking his son intermittently, “You are not gay. You never will be a gay. I will kill you myself if I ever find you even looking at a boy and thinking those horrible, disgusting thoughts. No son of mine is a fag.” 

With that, he dropped Shawn’s head again, stood up, and walked away like nothing ever happened. Shawn lay there for a few more moments before he heard the tv turn on, and he slowly moved to get up and drag himself back upstairs. He made it to the bathroom, and breathed shallowly a few times before he lifted his head to look at himself in the mirror. He winced at the amount of blood covering his face, and at all the red marks starting to turn darker as blood pooled at each site of proof of his father’s anger. He realized he was crying only due to the streaks of blood streaming down his face. He tried to wipe the lines of blood away, but they only smeared across his face even more instead of rubbing off. He flinched when he looked at his eyes, not because of the black eye he knew was already forming, but because his eyes looked dead. In that moment, he knew, if he stayed in his father’s house, Henry wouldn’t have to kill him for being gay, Shawn would do it himself. 

In the next moment, he realized that he just thought of killing himself, and he knew he never wanted to feel that way again. He had a lot to live for — he told himself it was because he had a long future ahead of him, but in his heart he knew that wasn’t his real reason to keep on living. Gus was. 

That night, he slowly took his clothes off and took another shower, this time to wash off all of the blood. When he got out, a few of the wounds started to sluggishly bleed again from being scrubbed too hard in the shower, so he went searching for bandages. In the back of one of the drawers in the bathroom, shoved behind and under everything else, he found some makeup his mother must have forgotten when she left them five years ago, when he was ten. He set the pot of skin colored stuff to the side and took out the bandages to wrap up some of the worse cuts, and once he was done, he went back to looking at the makeup. It said foundation on it, but when he put a bit of it on the back of his hand it covered up a steak of blood from one of his cuts that he missed when washing off. As he looked at the mirror again and saw the forming bruises, he decided he could use the stuff to cover up his face at school on Monday. It was fall, getting towards winter, so he could get away with wearing long sleeves outside, even though it was California. He would get some weird looks, but he knew it would be better than everyone seeing the bruises and asking what happened. 

He went to sleep that night mourning the loss of his father, because after tonight he could never call Henry his father again. That man lost that right the second he lay his hands on his son in anger. 

The next morning, Shawn woke up and immediately groaned in pain when he tried to sit up. His torso hurt badly, and he hoped nothing was broken because he couldn’t even begin to think of figuring out how to heal that. His sides were a dark purplish blue, and his arms weren’t much better given how hard Henry had gripped his arms in the past two days. He didn’t even want to see his face today, knowing it would not be pretty. 

As he slowly heaved himself up from laying down to sitting on the side of the bed, trying to psych himself up to stand, resentment started to bloom low in his gut. Who was Henry to tell him what to feel? Who he could or couldn’t love? Who was he to affect Shawn so much so that, for a moment, he hated himself so much that he saw no problem with killing himself! Shawn had always been confident, and rarely doubted himself. If he messed up, then he messed up. Why feel guilty when you can fix it? But now? Now he was questioning himself every step of the way. Worried about how to not set Henry off again. He didn’t want to live a life like that — always afraid that his next step will be the wrong one.

He didn’t want to live like that. 

He refused to live like that. 

Henry always told him he was raising him with the sole intention of turning his son into the best cop he could be. His eidetic memory was only ever an opportunity Henry thought to use to raise his son in his image. This led to the “games” of Shawn’s childhood. The ‘how many hats?’ and ‘tell me about them?’ games were Henry’s favorites. In any restaurant they went, they would order, and while it was being made Henry would continuously quiz Shawn on how many hats were in the room, and what the lives of the patrons were like. If Shawn got one thing wrong, he couldn’t have dessert. If he got two or more wrong, when the food arrived, Henry would have it boxed up while he ate everything on his plate in front of his son, and then Shawn would have to give his food to a homeless person on the street. Another “game” Henry liked to pay was the ‘escape game.’ He would lock Shawn in the trunk of a car, and then drive around for a bit, going over speed bumps, taking sharp turns, and driving over rough terrain, and Shawn would have to escape the trunk of the moving car. To do that, though, he had to get out of his bonds. That meant that, first, Shawn had to learn how to get out of being tied up with ropes, duct tape, zip ties, and handcuffs. 

All of these games, though, only led Shawn to resent cops more and more as the passed. If these games showcased what being a cop meant, then Shawn would rather be a traveling circus clown making less than minimum wage than become a cop. 

In the end, the ‘games’ he played growing up, and the discovery that Henry was a homophobe, led Shawn to the only sound decision the fifteen year old gay son of a police officer cold come up with: he had to run away. 

He refused to live in fear of Henry for the rest of his life. Shawn knew the statistics, the abuse was only going to get worse. Even if he renounced liking boys, Henry would only find something else to take out on his son. He knew it would never stop now that the floodgates had opened, so the only solution was to get away. Gus would tell him to tell his mom, or to tell Gus’ parents, but his mother had left and never looked back, he didn’t even know how to get in touch with her, and Gus’ parents would tell the police. Also known as Henry’s coworkers. The people that Henry had spent the last five years complaining to about his no good son. Yeah, that would go over well. 

Therefore, Shawn started to plan. First, he would need somewhere to go. Second, he would need a vehicle not associated with him to get to his destination. Third, he would need a new identity to take up immediately so that he would not be linked to “Runaway Shawn Spencer, white, 15 year old male, 5’6”, 120 lbs, blond hair, green eyes, last seen at home.” Lastly, he would need something to throw Henry off his scent, even if for a little while. Scratch that, lastly was telling Gus, because he was not going to abandon his best friend. 

End Flashback


	2. The Plan

For the next week, Shawn planned. He wanted to leave on the Friday of that week because, while it was a school holiday, it wasn’t a work one; so as far as Henry would know, Shawn would be at home all day while he was at work. Shawn planned; he researched other high schools, because he knew a high school degree would get him farther, and found a place in D.C. that looked good. It was a big school, so no one would notice if a kid joined late in the semester, and it was on the other end of the country, so it would take some time for news of a missing kid from California to reach over there. He called the school from a payphone and said that he was changing schools because his dad was getting a new job, so he needed to enroll late. He told them that his previous school was a small one, and not very focused on the grades as much as the education, so the paperwork may be a bit shoddy, and then, using his school’s library, he faxed over the minimum amount of paperwork he would need to transfer, all of the paper just having the edge of a high school’s name at the top of the page, but he knew its origins would be unidentifiable to anyone checking later on. His plan was, once he reached D.C., he would hire an actor to play his father to enroll him, and that should be that. 

Next, he needed a vehicle. One benefit to being a cop’s son is knowing what type of people all the cops were. For instance, he knew that the officers in charge of the Impound didn’t have much to do all day, and didn’t really care about their jobs because, really, who was going to steal a car from a police station? Shawn knew that the cars in the back were classified as long term parking because everyone pretty much knew they were never going to get claimed, but they still had to keep them for legal purposes until a relative claimed them, so they were shoved in the back. 

So one night, Shawn snuck into the Impound office when both officers in there stepped away to have a smoke, and he printed out a list of all of the cars in long term parking. On the list was the car's model, year, the owner’s name, and the general state of the car. Then, Shawn searched the owners’ names in the internet to find out why they hadn’t yet claim their car. From there, he used the list of owners who were deceased and looked up their public family history (i.e. if other families died young or old, if there was any family history of illnesses, etc). From that list, he found three cars with deceased owners that had family members that were not dead yet, but were on their way out. This way, when he took the car, if any of the officers decided to get up off their fat asses and figure out who took the car, they would see his forged paperwork stating a family member claimed the car to sell to pay for medical bills. By the time someone decided to actually check the paperwork, Shawn was banking on the likelihood of the family member having died, and the trail would end there; everyone assuming the family had sold the car and not bothered with any paperwork. Of the three cars, one was in good shape, wasn’t very noticeable, didn’t have any bloodstains in it, and was new enough that he could trade it in if he had to. Getting a vehicle could now be crossed off his list.

Shawn had told the school in D.C. that his name was Spencer Reid, and he decided to change his identity while he was on the road, so that was partially checked off his list. 

When Friday finally rolled around, Shawn was ready. He waited for an hour after Henry left to make sure he wouldn’t come back, then he started packing everything away in the car he had stolen the night before from the Impound. He left a note on the kitchen table for Henry to find when he came back from work telling him that he was staying the night at a girl’s house, implying that he was going to sleep with her, and to not wait up for him. Henry had been working Saturday’s too, lately, so he would leave for work the next day not worrying if Shawn hadn’t come home yet, and not wanting to bother him if this mystery girl would somehow fix his son’s condition. He then left a note on his pillow in his room saying that he was running away and never coming back. By then, he would already have a day’s head start, and he should be safe, especially because the station was always understaffed on Sunday, so a serious search for him wouldn’t ever be able to begin until Monday.

Finally he was ready, but now had to prepare himself for the hardest part in all of this. He got in the car and drove to Gus’ neighborhood, parking two streets over so Gus’ neighbors couldn’t link the car to Shawn if the police came over to question them. Shawn prepared himself as he walked over, and then knocked on the door with his heart in his throat. 

Gus opened the door, and looked at Shawn worriedly. He had been avoiding Gus for a little over a week now, and he had seen the bruises on Shawn’s face and arms, but whenever he tried to question him, Shawn found a way to avoid him. 

Shawn was anxious, but he knew he needed to do this. So he prepared himself to speak.

“Gus,” he started out, “I need to tell you something. And before your argue, I need you to hear me out. I’m doing this, you can’t stop me. I just need you to trust me.”

Gus was getting more worried with every word Shawn said, but he trusted his best friend wholeheartedly, so he nodded and waited for Shawn to speak again.

“I’m running away.”

Immediately Gus opened his mouth to ask (read: screech) his friend if he was crazy, but he remembered his promise at the last second, and pinched his mouth closed while giving Shawn a look they knew to mean that he better as hell have a good explanation.

Shawn winced at the look, but nodded, and started on his speech that he practiced on the way over there. 

“Last week, on Thursday, I went out on a date. I borrowed the truck after Henry said I couldn’t, and I took my date to the park. I know you are going to think this is stupid, but I have a crush on someone, and I want to kiss them, but I don’t really know how to kiss, so I asked someone else out on a date so I could kiss him so that if I ever got the chance to kiss my crush, I wouldn’t mess it up.” Shawn gulped for air after getting the first part out. Gus’ perked up a bit when Shawn said he went out with a boy, but saddened again when Shawn said that he already had a crush. 

Shawn shouldered on. “Henry found us, and he kicked my date out of the car and told him to walk home, and then he arrested me. He put me in a holding cell for the night, and that’s why I showed up to school on Friday without any of my homework, wearing the same clothes as the day before. When Henry got home that night, he called me down, and when I came downstairs, he started hitting me. He beat me up pretty bad, and told me he would kill me if he even thought I was thinking about kissing a boy ever again. So I decided to leave. I can’t live in that house anymore. You know how he was with his games, hell, you snuck me into your house enough times to give me dinner when he wouldn’t let me eat, so you know. I can’t take it. I just can’t take it anymore. I’m going to Washington. Don’t worry, I enrolled in a school over there, and I am going to get through high school, and depending on my scores, maybe get into a community college. I’m already packed and everything, I just needed to come over and tell you where I’m going. I had to see you before I left.”

With that he finished his speech, and as he sucked in air to replenish everything he just pushed out he finally looked up from his feet and met Gus’ eyes. They had been getting steadily bigger and bigger as the story went on, but by the end of it he had an understanding look in his eyes, and Shawn knew he got why Shawn had to do this. Now Gus understood why Shawn had all of those bruises that he could still see under the badly done makeup Shawn had on this past week and a half. 

Gus heaved a big sigh, and then nodded. “Will I ever see you again?”, he said, voice cracking only a little. Okay, a lot. Fine he was crying, so sue him. His best friend was leaving and he knew he couldn’t stop him if he wanted Shawn to live past the next three years.

Shawn nodded his head violently while he shoved a piece of torn notebook paper at Gus and rushed to say, “Of course. Here is my email you can use to contact me. I will check it every day at the very least, and I will have alerts set up so I will get an alert whenever you send me something. Make a new account not linked with your real name, and then send me something, and then I will tell you the name of my new school and where I am going to be living. My new name is Spencer Reid. I am going to dye my hair brown and get brown contacts. If you ever find the chance to come to D.C., tell me, and I will meet up with you.” 

Shawn handed him a piece of paper with an email on it, and when Gus reached for it, Shawn grabbed his hand and rushed forward to hug him, with their arms crushed between them as Shawn practically squeezed him to death. Gus felt hot liquid hit his neck, and realized that Shawn was crying, and then he was sniffling and crying even more into Shawn’s shoulder, holding his best friend as hard as he could; as if by hugging him and not letting go, it would convince Shawn not to leave. But he knew. He knew Shawn needed to go, for his own safety. This past week, whenever he looked into Shawn’s eyes, something seemed to be missing, and Gus just knew that Shawn could only get that special spark in his eyes back if he was as far away from his Henry as he could get. 

Shawn finally pulled away, and looked at Gus one last time. He knew if he didn’t do it now, he would regret it for the rest of his life, so when Gus just looked at him, all teary-eyed and with a small smile on the edges of his lips, Shawn surged forward once more. He pressed his lips against Gus’, and kissed him. Gus went still for a moment, and then collapsed against Shawn and tilted his face to better accept the kiss. Neither of them had ever kissed anyone before, so it was weird — wet, and imperfect — but at the same time it was completely and utterly perfect. When they finally pulled apart, they were both crying again, but they both had goofy smiles on their faces. 

Shawn stepped back and brought his fingers to his lips, as if he couldn’t believe they just did that, but startled when his watch buzzed, warning him that it was time to go. He scowled at his wrist before looking back up at Gus, whose smile was now one of sadness. 

Gus nodded, and said, “Go. You need to go. Don’t worry Shawn, we will see each other again.”

Shawn nodded, and said, “We will. Trust me when I say this: while you may be the only person I ever do that to, that will not be our final kiss.”

Gus blushed at how certain Shawn sounded, and nodded back at him to show he felt the same. He watched sadly as Shawn walked away, and cut through his backyard to get back to his car, moving farther away from Gus with each step. As Gus watched Shawn go, he pledged to himself that Shawn was right — he may never kiss anyone else, but that was certainly not going to be his last kiss.


	3. *Umpire Voice* Safe!

Shawn made it to D.C. in record time for someone who only had a provisional diver’s license. He stopped only for food and bathroom breaks, and to make a little money. He had cleaned out the house of some of the perishables, and a lot of preserved snacks, so he ate on the road. He arrived in D.C. Wednesday night, exhausted, but happy because he hadn’t seen any road signs with Amber Alerts with his information on them, so they probably thought he was still in state. He would have arrived Monday night, but he made a small detour to Las Vegas to replenish his cash reserves. 

The trick to getting into places 21 and up when you are 15 is to have nicer clothes, and a look declaring that you belonged there. He may be on the short side, but growing up trained to be a cop, he knew how to make himself into whatever people needed to see, so he dressed to be invisible. He wore his nicest pair of jeans, they were dark and looked starched, and had no holes or tears on them. He put on a dark grey silk-like button down that shined when the lights of the casino played across it, and he wore a darker grey sports coat over his shirt. 

On his way into the first casino, he pretended to know an older man he saw and made some small talk while he patted the man on the back. He shook his hand before he walked away, effectively taking the nice looking Rolex and wallet off the older gentleman. He didn’t feel particularly guilty because he had watched as the man sent his wife to a jewelry store before he slapped the butt of a woman dressed for a show as she passed him. Now, Shawn looked like a trust fund kid trying to slum it, and he was ready to get some money. 

One of the benefits of an eidetic memory (and an affinity for math and chess, basically any puzzle game) was that he was really good at game strategy, as well as counting cards. By now, it was second nature, and he was very good about hiding that he knew how to win. As it was, no one wanted to play against someone who always won, so after he learned how to count cards and win, he learned how to count cards and lose. This way, he knew how to win just the right amount of games to get him decent payouts, and lose the games that would have only gotten him a little bit of money. He had turned the wallet in at security, with the credit cards and ID still there, and only kept the cash. He then used that cash to play a few tables, and made $50,000. He then turned in the chips for cash and went to the casino down the street. He continued that for four more casinos, even though he had waaaaay more that $50,000 on him, he only exchanged thirty or fifty for chips at each casino, this way he stayed off the radar as much as an apparent trust fund kid who appeared to have an eye for poker could. He made approximately $400,000 that night and decided that was enough to get himself an apartment in D.C. long enough to get through the rest of high school. 

He slept for almost the entire day Thursday at a motel he found that practically advertised that it wouldn’t think twice at handing a teenager with fading bruises on his face a room for a day or two as long as they handed over some cash. On Friday, he went out to find an actor willing to play his dad to enroll him in school, and help him get an apartment. He found a nice guy at one of the community theaters that resembled his new look enough that the man could play his father, and told him the deal. He would pay the man $50 to enroll him in the high school and $100 to help him get an apartment that wasn’t too seedy, but also wouldn’t notice if the adult was never seen again after filling out the paperwork to rent the place. The actor saw something in Shawn, he didn’t know what. Maybe it was the desperate look in his eyes, maybe it was the fading bruises he thought he could hide will a ball cap, maybe it was something else, Shawn would never know, but the man agreed to play the part of the father, and said he would only take $50 in total for the two jobs. Shawn was secretly thankful because, though he had a decent amount of money, he didn’t know how long that would last him in the real world, and wanted it to last as long as it could. 

That day his “dad” took Shawn to the high school and got him enrolled, and then brought him to an apartment building where he knew the owner. He said that the guy was nice and wouldn’t give him any trouble, so Shawn agreed to stay there for a decent price as long as he paid cash. He also slipped a card into Shawn’s jacket when he wasn’t looking, with the contact information for “a good photographer.” By the end of the day, Shawn had moved into his new place, where all of his clothes and possessions he was able to take were in three medium sized suitcases and his bed for the night was a sleeping bag.

Saturday he spent buying groceries and a blow up mattress, buying a few more locks for his new place, and getting the books he needed for the next week. He also spent some time calling the phone number on the card he was slipped, where he was given an address and an appointment for the next day. He explored the city a bit, just to familiarize himself with everything, and was exhausted when he got back to his apartment that night, practically collapsing into his new bed. 

He went out on Sunday to a building he remembered passing during his explorations, and put $200 down on a good fake ID, with the promise of updating it as grew older if he needed to. After that, he walked through the city again, this time exploring a bit more in depth, and by the end of the day he felt he could walk through it with his eyes closed and not get lost. 

As he fell asleep that night, it finally hit him. He did it. He actually did it. He had run away from home two weeks ago, no one had found him yet, and he was starting a new life. As sleep pulled him under, he went peacefully knowing that, for now, at least, he was safe.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, short chapter, but no worries, more will be coming soon!
> 
> Also, from now on Shawn will be referred to as Spencer Reid.

Two months in and school was going very well for Spencer. He had tested out of sophomore year almost immediately, and was going to test his way out of junior year next week. Henry had always prohibited him from skipping grades when he was younger, saying no one liked a know-it-all, so he was always bored in class, which was why he was always in trouble at his previous school. Here, he had the freedom to let his knowledge shine, and it was glorious. His teachers and principal were already urging him to think about college, helping him find schools that would give him scholarships so that he wouldn’t have to pay for most of his education. 

He emailed Gus at least every day, usually more than once, and they shared everything with each other. The police were still looking for Shawn, but there weren’t any leads, and aside from asking Gus and his parents a few questions, they didn’t bother him. Gus was still in his sophomore year like Spencer was originally, but he was helping Spencer pick out a few different schools. Spencer had his eye on one in New York that seemed to really want him. He had recently taken an IQ test, paid for by his school, and it turned out he was a certifiable genius with an IQ of 187 and a reading speed of 20,000 words per minute. Once colleges learned of this, they all started vying for him, bribing him with new and better deals every other week. 

By the time he was 16, Shawn was enrolled in college in New York, and was already working his way through the classes. The school allowed him to test out of classes at his own pace, because his goal was to be Dr. Spencer Reid by age 17. He raced through classes, and sure enough, one month after he turned 17, he earned his first doctorate in Mathematics. Gus was ecstatic for Spencer, and he was doing well enough in school as well that, when it was time for him to start scoping out colleges, he had the opportunity to apply to many good schools that were willing to offer him partial scholarships. He wanted to go to the college Spencer was at, but he applied to a lot of schools in states surrounding New York so that no one got suspicious. He was accepted to almost all of them , but the only one he cared about was Spencer’s school. Just when he was starting to despair, he received a large envelope in the mail, and in it, his acceptance to Spencer’s school. He was so excited he emailed Spencer right away, attaching a picture of his acceptance letter. Spencer immediately responded with his congratulations, writing that he couldn’t wait to see Gus again.


	5. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gus goes to college

The second Gus got a text from his parents saying that they had boarded the plane and were on their way home, Gus texted Spencer his building and room number. Gus’ roommate had emailed to tell him that he would arrive tomorrow, so Gus had almost a full day alone with Spencer. For the first time since they were fifteen. He was so excited that he went and stood against his window, trying to see if he could spot Spencer. He examined everyone who walked towards the building as subtly as he could, because he didn’t want to be known as a creeper on his first day, but he couldn’t see him. He was still searching when he heard a knock on the door. He fell over his one of his suitcases rushing to the door, so when he answered it he was looking down at his shin, scowling as if it was his shins’ fault he fell, and not his own. When he looked up, though, he froze at the sight of the man at the door. 

Spencer looked completely different from the short blond kid from California. He had a growth spurt sometime between their separation and their reunion, towering over Gus’ 5’9” with his own 6’0” now. He had also gotten leaner, but he definitely still had muscle. Like he told Gus when they were fifteen, he now had brown hair, and his eyes were brown now too; but they were still Shawn’s eyes. They had that spark back in them too; that spark was inherently Shawn, and now that he was away from California, nothing could steal that spark from him ever again. 

Gus was released from his frozen state by Spencer’s breathy, “Gus.” 

Suddenly, as if someone who had previously hit pause now pressed play, they both lurched towards each other and met in the middle to grasp at other like the long separated lovers they were.

They held onto each other for a long time, finding neither could pull away from each other after all these years, but finally they managed to pry themselves away from each other, even if it was only a few inches. When they were close to an arms length apart while still holding each other, they looked the other up and down, memorizing and committing to memory new looks and old habits.

Gus had gotten taller too, now standing at 5’9”. His hair was still cut pretty close to his head, and he still wore his usual outfit of khaki pants, a button down with a sweater or sweater vest on top, and oxfords. Spencer noticed that he had two new scars, one a half of an inch long on the inner side of his right forearm, and another one-inch scar bisecting his left eyebrow. He noted to himself that he would have figure out who or what caused them at the first opportunity.

The looked at each other for a few moments longer before Spencer leaned forward again and rested his forehead against Gus’. 

Smiling, he whispered against his love’s lips, close to kissing, yet never actually, “Gus. It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you so much.”

Gus smiled widely and said, “It’s been too long Spencer, emailing was never enough. I missed you so much. I’m glad we’re together again.”

Spencer hugged him again, this time more gently. He lowered his head more and sighed into his friend’s neck before stepping back to look around at the room full of boxes and suitcases. 

“Well, you haven’t done much decorating yet. Can I help?”

Gus blushed at how messy his room looked, but knew it was going to take forever to unpack everything, so he pointed Spencer towards a wall of boxes and they started unpacking everything. Gus was busy putting all of his clothes away while Spencer started unpacking his many, many school supplies. He was prepared, dammit. While Gus worked he directed Spencer as to where everything went, and before they knew it, everything was unpacked and put in its proper place. 

A resident assistant showed up at one point to make sure the little freshmen weren’t lost with setting their rooms up, but when she poked her head in to introduce herself and offer help, she found two men in the room, and only one side of the room was set up. She gave them a weird look, trying to figure out why the other man didn’t have anything on his own side of the room, but he just smiled back and gave all of her questions obtuse answers. Soon enough she was fed up trying to figure him out, so she just left. 

After that, Spencer made sure Gus had his room key and keycard to enter the building, making sure to tease him relentlessly until he took his keycard off the school-provided lanyard, and then walked him around the campus, pointing out all the spots he knew Gus would want to know about. They spent two hours wandering where aimlessly, following wherever the paths took them, letting Gus figure out some things for himself before Spencer took him to the cafeteria in the student center to grab some dinner. They ate pizza together while catching up on some things that just could not be accurately expressed in an email, and they immediately fell back into old habits like they were fifteen years old all over again. Once they were finished, Spencer walked Gus back to his building because there were some activities the residents were supposed to be there for that night. They stopped at Gus’ dorm, and before Spencer left for the night he hugged Gus again, and promised he would be back tomorrow.


	6. Short Filler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little short in the lives of our two boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short chapter, I don’t even know why. Don’t worry, there is more to come.

The next day, Spencer showed up, and after feeding Gus, brought him over to his room in the graduate student’s building. Because Spencer started as a grad student younger than most, he got a single room, and he has been allowed to keep it over the years as long as he kept getting doctorates. He explained to Gus that right now he had a P.h.D. in Mathematics, and he is currently working on dual doctorates for Chemistry and Engineering. His year was different than everyone else’s, so the school’s first semester was more like the second semester for him with the current workload he had. 

They hung out in Spencer’s room until Gus got a text from his roommate saying he was finished setting up, and maybe the should meet up for lunch and introduce themselves. Gus was in a suite with three other boys, two in one room and two in the there with small lounge in between, so they all needed to meet up anyway and learn more about each other so they could all survive freshman year. Spencer walked with Gus back to his building, letting Gus lead the way so he could familiarize himself with the campus a bit more, and left Gus at the doors to his dorm. He promised to see Gus later, and then went back to his room to start on his work again. While everyone else was starting the new semester, he had work due later that week for the heads of his majors’ departments.


	7. Gus and Spencer’s Twenty-First Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer does his research. Much glitter is involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly have no excuse for not updating. I got nothing. Here, have a chapter.

Time went on. Spencer was now the proud holder of three doctorates and he was working on another two in Psychology and Sociology. With these new classes and enough time and distance from Henry, he was able to more calmly reevaluate his childhood, and this led to him to want to learn more about the human mind. He knew the psychology degree wasn’t going to be pretty, but he needed to do this in order to set something still roiling inside himself to rest. The sociology degree was so that if he ever needed to interview someone for data for his psychology dissertation, he wouldn’t screw up his wording and accidentally insult or mentally harm the person. It sounded ridiculous, but he had accidentally insinuated some very insulting things when he questioned a guest lecturer in an Engineering class a few years ago, so he apparently wasn’t as suave or articulate as he thought. His advisor had strongly recommended a certain Sociology class for next semester, and he found that the class was so interesting and tied so well into his other degrees that he decided to add this to his ever growing pile of doctorates. 

Spencer and Gus were both twenty one years old now, and could both legally drink. They hadn’t really snuck into bars often before this, primarily because Spencer had his fake ID updated to say 21, but Gus wasn’t yet legally, so Gus only allowed him to break the law on special occasions; but now they were legal and they were damn well going to celebrate that fact. It was Gus’ birthday, so Spencer let Gus drag him to the boring art exhibit that was only for people 21 and up, which Spencer totally did not understand, age and art wise, but Gus wanted it, so Gus got it. 

After that, Spencer was in charge of the evening. And boy, was it going to be something. 

Spencer had done his research, and he found the weirdest, most psychedelic place he could find for partying. It was called House of Yes, and was located in Brooklyn. They had a different theme every night, and one way to ensure you got in, other than buying tickets ahead of time, was to dress in costume. You had to be in costume to get in anyway, but you were moved up in the line if you came already decked out for the night. Spencer had bought tickets, though, because he was going to make sure they got in and let loose for a night. That night’s theme was “Glitterati,” and with what Spencer had planned, he was going to do his damndest to ensure he and Gus would be finding glitter in the weirdest of places for years to come. 

Spencer, in his true, Shawn-like fashion, was dressed in a sequined, multi colored body suit. It had long sleeves, and was made up of ridiculously large sequin circles that flashed orange, green, purple, blue, or silver depending on the light. It could technically be considered a v-neck, given that the “v” went halfway down his torso, and it was definitely form-fitting, but worked with his slender physique. He wore chunky, 2-inch high heels made up of the same sequins as his bodysuit, but the sequins were more the size of a pinky nail rather than a watch face. He had on a reddish orange glittering eye shadow, crystals placed strategically along his cheek bones and exposed chest, and a luminescent electric blue lipstick and gloss. He also had sliver and red glitter streaked through his styled hair. When the right light hit him, he looked like he was on fire. 

Gus, on the other hand, wanted to emulate Michael Jackson. He had on a black shirt and black pants that had lines of silver sequins running up and down his body. Spencer had him hold out on his last monthly hair cut, so his hair had grown out just enough to be reminiscent to Michael’s, and he had Spencer draw out a few weird shapes and designs on the back of his hair with glitter. 

They went out, and for five, almost six hours, they forgot the world and just lost themselves in the music and lights and people. They stuck together the whole night, when one wanted something from the bar, they both went. In the end, they didn’t even drink that much. They each had maybe five drinks total the whole night. What was more important was that they were together. That was all that really mattered to the pair.

They got a taxi back to the school, and stumbled in around 3am with pineapple smoothies they had gotten from the food truck around the corner from the club as they waited for their ride. Gus didn’t want to wake his roommate because he had a big test the next day, so Spencer drug them both back to his room. They had been at college together for three years now and they each had clothes stashed in each other’s rooms, so when they stumbled into Spencer’s room, exhausted, they both grabbed the first pjs they could find, changed, and collapsed onto Spencer’s bed. Spencer then had to get up because his face felt gritty and he remembered that he was wearing makeup. He was a little tipsy because he had gotten something strong to drink about twenty minutes before they left, so when he got up he looked at his pillow he giggled insanely before throwing it onto the floor. He knew not touching it again was important, even though he couldn’t be bothered to remember why at the moment. 

He trudged over to his bathroom and grabbed the makeup wipes from his counter and scrubbed his face until the wipes came back as white as they were originally, and them stumbled over to Gus to try and wipe the glitter from Gus’ hair. Given the amount of alcohol in his system, he thought he was being helpful and wiping the glitter out of his hair, but in reality he had forgotten the wipe in the bathroom and was just petting Gus’ hair, spreading the glitter around more with each caress. He threw the wipes he forgot until that moment were in his other hand in the direction of the trashcan and then collapsed onto his bed again, snuggling up against a sleeping Gus because he now had no pillow, and fell asleep, calmed by the heartbeat of his best friend. 

The next morning, well, afternoon really, Gus grumbled something into Spencer’s ear, effectively rousing him from his deep slumber, but he burrowed further into Gus’ chest, attempting to escape the dreaded light and wakefulness. His pillow started to move away from him, and he scrunched up his nose into a pout as he moved over towards the real pillow, seeking out the warmth that was mysteriously disappearing. 

Gus’ bark of laughter rudely awakened him from sleep, and he jumped up, crouching in a very bad ninja representation on the bed, looking around wildly before he found Gus in front of him. A Gus who looked remarkably refreshed, and awake, and showered, for someone who Spencer thought just got up and should look as miserable as Spencer felt. He didn’t though, so he looked at Gus suspiciously while his friend looked back at him trying and failing to stifle the laughter that caused all of this in the first place. 

“Why did you wake me up?” Spencer whined, equal parts sleepy and curious as he lowered himself back onto the bed, trying to convince himself it was worth it to not go back to sleep.

Gus smirked, but rather than answer, merely stepped to the side and pointed at something on the floor. 

It was the pillow from the night before. The pillow with a perfect replica of Spencer yawning mashed into it from when he fell onto it face first. Makeup first.


	8. Surface Evaluations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer meets someone who can keep up with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyyy. Soooooo, first off, I am so sorry about the random hiatus. I got into the swing of school and then just didn't feel like writing for a while, so I want to apologize for not mentioning that I was taking a break for a bit.   
On another note, guess who just found out they wrote six more chapters that they forgot to post before they went on their little break??? You guessed it! They are all mostly a little on the short side, and for those of you complaining about that, I get that it may be frustrating to read, but that's just how I write, sooo...yeah. I will be putting up the six others that I wrote soon enough, just need to proofread them again and make sure they are following the plot line I already created when I first started this story.

Time passed on, and soon Spencer was sitting in on a lecture that an advisor thought would help him with his thesis for his doctorate in Psychology. The guest speaker was a one Jason Gideon, previously employed by the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. 

He was very interesting, and Spencer had a few questions he wanted to ask the profiler once the lecture finished. He approached the older man once everyone else had dispersed, paper and pen at the ready to list his questions and jot down the man’s answers. The teacher of that particular class knew him well by then, so when she saw Spencer lingering, she nodded to him and thanked Gideon before saying that her last student had a few questions, so she would leave Gideon in his capable hands. 

By this time, the profiler had noticed Spencer and was making a surface evaluation while the teacher was speaking. With his first glance, all he saw was a tall, skinny kid with a nerdy look to him, mismatched socks, too many papers, a satchel full of books, and intelligence in his eyes. His second glance, though, told him much more about his subject. Though he was skinny, he was by no means a twig, and something in his eyes made Gideon think he was more of a researcher than just another bookworm who had never experienced the real world. All the papers and books in his bag were on the general topic of psychology, so therefore he must have already declared his major. He also had a well-worn paperback sticking out of the outer pocket of his bag, indicating that it was well-used, and with a bit of maneuvering, he was able to see that it was a book of the best crosswords ever created by the world’s most well-known puzzle masters, so therefore his intelligence was increased from ‘this boy is smart’ to ‘this kid knows some shit’. Overall, Gideon was expecting a few semi-intelligent questions on psychology. What he was not expecting, was the reference to three different recent studies in the psychology community as the basis for the introduction to his question, and the correct scientific names for certain chemicals in the brain that have recently been shown to parallel a specific subtype of psychopathy, all to finally lead to the inquiry of, given what was just mentioned, might he have made a mistake during his lecture today? 

The boy didn’t know it yet, but it was at that moment that Jason Gideon decided he really liked this man, and would do whatever he could to convince him to join the FBI. 

The profiler didn’t know it yet, but when he responded without missing a beat or making fun of Spencer’s intelligence, addressing all of the points he mentioned, and agreeing that he made a mistake, it was at that moment that Dr. Spencer Reid decided he liked this man, due in part to the fact that he could keep up with Spencer’s mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going to be honest, I recommend treating this story like how I personally read In-progress stories. I don't. I turn on email notifications and delete update notices until the story is marked as complete, and then I read it all the way through, so that I'm not hooked on cliffhangers. If that doesn't work for you, then you do you, I'm just offering another option in case it makes someone's life easier.
> 
> Anyway, more to come in the next couple weeks, and thanks for reading!


	9. The Chemistry of Proper Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess. Really, look at the name of the chapter and take a guess. (Not actually very good a writing sexual tension due to no experience, so if anyone has any notes to add, I will gladly read them. PS don’t be a creep)

Time passed. Spencer and Gus were twenty-two. They had finally kissed again. They had been sitting on Spencer’s bed, and he was helping Gus with one of his chemistry assignments. Gus wanted to major in pharmacology, and for that he needed a lot of chemistry courses, so it was a good thing his best friend already had a doctorate in Chemistry. At one point, Gus was starting to get overwhelmed. It was too much. There were too many letters and numbers stringing together in his head, he couldn’t keep them straight. And the words! Oh, the words! He had a test coming up where he had to be able to list fifty medications of his choosing, their brand name, generic name, and the base chemical components in each medication. He was going to fail this for sure! He had his fifty figured out, now it was just a matter of memorization, but his focus and attention decreased as every minute passed him by. 

He was starting to hyperventilate now. He couldn’t memorize this many things, there were too many, and he didn’t have enough time! He was going to fail this test, which meant he was going to fail the class, which meant the teachers were going to talk to each other and all of the other teachers were going to think he was a slacker, and it was all piling on top of everything!

By now, Spencer had noticed Gus’ rapid heartbeat, unseeing gaze, and the slowly crumbling look of confidence that was disappearing with every second. He called Gus’ name, and gently shook him when that didn’t do anything. When shaking only led to him tearing up, but otherwise not moving, Spencer knew he had to do something to shock Gus out of the black hole he was spiraling down. Spencer didn’t know how Gus would react, because they never talked about the kiss when they were fifteen, so he crossed his fingers and leaned down to settle his lips across Gus’. 

That certainly shocked Gus out of his despair. His eyes widened in one moment as he realized what Spencer was doing, and in the next moment he was practically collapsing against Spencer as he kissed back. Somehow, Spencer was still not entirely sure how it happened, Gus went from kissing him to crying into his shoulder. Of course he was worried that his kiss was what caused the crying, so he tried to extricate himself from Gus’ arms, but his friend only tightened his hold, so he decided it was best to just hold his friend and pat him on the back until the tears died down and he could figure out how to fix this whole mess. 

Slowly, after a few minutes, Gus calmed down and his tears started to abate. That was when it hit him — his friend/crush/possible-love-of-his-life kissed him, and he responded by crying. 

Shit. 

He slowly pulled himself out of Spencer’s arms and glanced up at him through his eyelashes, trying to gauge the situation, and winced when he saw Spencer’s worried look, and underneath that Gus just knew Spencer was trying to hide his sadness. He needed to fix this fast, but he wasn’t sure how. He knew that at this very moment, Spencer was over-analyzing everything. From the kiss, to the crying, to Gus wincing and pulling away when he stopped crying, and was adding all of this up and drawing the wrong conclusions. 

So he did the only thing he could think of to draw Spencer out of his brain — he pushed himself up from his slightly slumped position and slowly leaned forward, glancing between Spencer’s eyes and lips every other second, until his lips were pressed against Spencer’s again.

He had kept his unspoken promise to Shawn-now-Spencer and had never kissed anyone else since the first time when they were fifteen. The problem now, though, was that that meant he had absolutely no idea how to properly kiss someone past pressing lips together and maybe opening the mouth and doing something with the tongue — he still wasn’t clear on that bit. 

The result, in the end, was Spencer freezing when their lips met again, but promptly unfreezing when Gus tilted his head a certain way that sparked something deep inside him. Spencer took control of the kiss, and soon he and Gus were lost in the sensations. They kissed for what felt like hours before they finally parted, panting for breath. Their necks hurt from staying at a weird angle for too long, and Gus’ face felt scratchy and swollen from crying, but none of it mattered in the scheme of things given what they just experienced. 

Spencer was still nervous, because he didn’t know why Gus had started crying, and he was even more confused because Gus had just kissed him, which meant he wasn’t uncomfortable with Spencer kissing him earlier, so he had been crying for some other reason. Spencer really didn’t like it whenever Gus was upset, he always tried to fix it, but he didn’t know what had to be fixed at the moment, and it was making him anxious. On the other hand, though, Gus had just kissed him! Yes! Finally! The man he had been in love with since he was a boy had feelings for him too. He was ecstatic!

Gus was happy too. He had been crushing on Spencer for a long time, long before he was known as Spencer, and he finally got a proper kiss! On the other hand, he was extremely embarrassed because the man he might possibly love just kissed him, and instead of kissing back, he started crying, and then couldn’t stop. He knew Spencer always took care of him, and he knew that any problem he had was always easily fixed by telling Spencer and then just sitting back and watching as his friend took care of it. That was why he knew he needed to tell Spencer everything. 

It would all be okay once he told Spencer. 

So, he did.

“I’m sorry for crying!”, he rushed out in one breath. “I liked the kiss, well, actually, loved the kiss. It was great. But right before that, everything just hit me. I was stressing about my chemistry test, and it just kept getting worse, and then you kissed me, and that was perfect, and something inside me just broke, knowing that I was safe and cared for, so I just started crying. And then I couldn’t stop. But then I did stop, and I realized that you kissed me, and in response I started crying, and I didn’t want you to draw the wrong conclusions. I wasn’t crying because of your kiss. Well, okay I kind of was. But I went from breaking-down-crying to knowing-I-was-safe-crying. But when I pulled away to look at you, you looked so sad, and I didn’t know how else to tell you that I wasn’t crying because the kiss was horrible. It was actually the opposite.”

Gus was waving his arms this way and that as he added to his growing pile of insecurities, and at that point, he was starting to get dizzy from giving his miniature speech with barely a breath taken throughout, so he had to stop talking. He would have stopped anyway, though, because by the end of it Spencer had grabbed his hands and held them together to still his rapid movements and was now just staring at him with a little smile on his face, and Gus was lost all over again, captured in the warm and caring gaze of his best friend.

Spencer knew his best friend, and hopefully soon to be more, needed something to ground him, so he decided to share his side of things so that everything was out in the open. “I was worried that you hated that I kissed you and ruined our friendship, and that was why you started crying. But then you kissed me again, and I was fairly sure that that wasn’t it.” Now a smirk stretched over his face as he said, “And I to have to say, that was the best kiss I ever had.”

“That was your second kiss,” Gus said wryly. 

“Mayb-, wait! That was my third kiss! I kissed you when we were fifteen, and the we kissed right before you started crying, and then we kissed right after you stopped crying,” Spencer cried out indignantly while jostling Gus hands that he still hadn’t let go of.

“No,” Gus said with his own little smirk now, “what we did when we were fifteen was not a proper kiss, so it doesn’t count.”

“Oh ho ho, not a proper kiss! I’ll show you a proper kiss!”

The chemistry homework got pushed off the bed at some point, but the next day Spencer helped him revamp his study schedule, this time with proper…rewards… for every time he got something right, and motivation for every time he wavered. Gus got a 92. Everyone was happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I haven't uploaded in so long I decided to grace all of you with two chapters today. I will be posting the rest that I already have written in the upcoming weeks, but after that I don't know when I will be able to post again. I am essentially taking seven classes this semester, so I know for sure I am going to be dropping off once stuff gets bad. I hope you all like this chapter! Have a great day everybody!


	10. The Insanity of Expecting Different Results

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The offer for the FBI is on the table. Spencer opens up a bit to Gideon.

Spencer and Gideon met every week, sometimes more, for a game of chess while discussing Spencer’s psychology dissertation and Gideon’s past cases. At the end of every game, right before he left, he would always ask Spencer if he would join the FBI, and Spencer always said no. At the start of the eighth game, Gideon decided to mix it up. 

Right as Spencer was about to make his opening move, Gideon asked, “Why do you _not_ want to join the FBI?”

Spencer faltered, but he recovered, placing his pawn down where he wanted it before glancing up at Gideon. 

“Finally, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me for some time now. You know, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.”

Gideon smiled at the quote as he placed a knight, but said, “You didn’t answer my question. Why do you refuse to join the FBI?”

“It’s not the FBI,” Spencer began as the game continued, “so much so as it is the police force. My dad always wanted me to be a cop — he raised me to be a cop, in fact. But he went about it entirely the wrong way. In raising me the way he did, I actually grew up resenting cops. There was only ever one police officer I really liked, and I only met him once, so I can’t even say with a reasonable amount of certainty that I would have continued to like him as time went on.”

Gideon shot him a look during his explanation, because this was the first time Spencer ever shared something about his childhood. Up until now, he only ever spoke from when he came to New York and on. He stayed quiet in hopes that Spencer would divulge more about his early childhood, but the game continued, and the conversation did not. 

At the end, when they were packing everything up, Gideon spoke once more.

“What can I do to convince you to join the FBI?”

Spencer shot his an exasperated look, but seemed to think about it. He liked Gideon, and he really was very interested in the work Gideon did at the BAU. The problem was trust. Could he entrust this FBI agent with his secrets, or would he be arrested at the first opportunity once he realized the manner in which Spencer took to get to where he was today was not entirely legal? In the end, he decided to take the leap of faith. Progress can’t be made without moving forward in some manner, so onward he went, hoping against all hopes that he was not putting his trust in the wrong man.

“Due to circumstances that I really do not wish to share,” Spencer sighed and began wearily, “I do not have a Social Security number. I have not always been Spencer Reid, and because of that, I don’t believe the FBI would be willing to have me. If you can convince someone high up in your department to take me on despite what I have had to do to get here, and ensuring that I can work under this identity, possibly even making it official? Making it so that I don’t have to continue to rely on the kindness of strangers to do certain things like rent an apartment or continue my schooling legally, then…well… it would go a long ways towards endearing me to the FBI.”

Gideon couldn’t stop the curious look he knew was washing over his face with each word Spencer spoke — now he really wanted to know this young man’s history. Maybe if he secured what Spencer wanted, he might be willing to share his whole story.


	11. Going on a Decade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon pulls some strings and Spencer explains his situation.

Gideon returned for their next meeting without a chess set this time. Instead, he told Spencer to tighten his tie (they were always a little too loose when he wore them) and to follow him, because they were going to speak to someone who could help Spencer.

He led Spencer to his car and drove them to a hotel in the middle of Manhattan. As they made their way through the lobby to the elevator, Jason explained that the director of the FBI was based in Washington, D.C., but he had been talking to her about Spencer for a while now, and when he told her of the conditions, she insisted on meeting Spencer. 

They continued to the top floor and turned the corner, heading towards the door at the end of the hallway. Gideon knocked, and soon the door was opened by small woman whose height in no way reflected the authority she exuded. 

She truly was small woman, generously at 5’4”, and had greying brown hair (more grey than brown). She had on a dark purple suit jacket with a pin of the American flag on the lapel, a pressed white shirt, matching skirt, and sensible black heels (think Melissa Leo in The Equalizer 1&2). She smiled at him, but he didn’t miss the sweeping glance she gave him, evaluating his threat level in those few milliseconds.

Her strong voice commanded the room and left no room for argument as she took control of the situation before anyone else could speak. “Please, Dr. Reid, come in. Jason, could you wait outside please? I will call you when we are done.”

Without waiting for a response from either man, she swept Spencer into the room and closed the door behind him. 

Spencer was nervous because Gideon wasn’t going to be with him during the meeting, telling him when to speak or when to shut up. He was getting better about watching how he said things, but he was by no means able to hold a conversation without messing up and insulting someone at least once.

Gideon was disappointed he wasn’t included because he wanted to know what Spencer was going to tell her. The young man only became curiouser and curiouser to the older profiler with each personal detail he managed to wrangle out of the young man.

The woman ushered him into the lounge with a sure grip on his shoulder and led him to a couch as she offered him something to eat or drink before sitting down on an imposing wingback chair when he declined both offers. From what he could observe around him, beyond the lounge there was a bedroom facing the window, but the blinds were drawn, so he couldn’t see anything outside. 

Once they were seated and settled, she went straight to the heart of the matter. “Tell me, Dr. Reid, why do you want the FBI to create a background for you. What makes you think we would just hand out valid driver’s licenses and”, here she stressed, “Social Security numbers, hmm?”

Spencer swallowed, but answered with a clear and strong voice. “First of all, please, just call me Spencer, Mr. Reid if you must, I may be a doctor, but even after all these years, I am not accustomed to the title. Second, I wish to assure you that neither I, now, nor who I was before, are a threat to the nation. Neither are any of my family, now or before.”

Here, she interrupted, not exactly accusing, but not comfortingly either. “Family, yes. You seem particularly fond of one Burton Guster, and you apparently have a father,” her tone turned droll now, as she said, “seeing as how he enrolled you in high school and helped you get your first apartment under the name Spencer Reid. Funny thing is, we can’t seem to locate him anywhere.”

He nodded, and with a small smile and gentle voice he said, “Yes, well, that can happen when you want to enroll yourself in high school, but you need a parental figure for that. It is amazing what an actor is willing to do without question given the right amount of money. I would appreciate it, though,” his voice growing harder as he sniped, “if we kept Gus out of this.”

He knew he played his hand too early, but he needed to know now if she was stupid enough to try to use Gus against him. If that was the case, he would immediately cut all ties with Gideon and the government if there was even the possibility Gus was at risk. Her first priority might be the security of the nation, but his would always be Gus.

Thankfully, she merely inclined her head and gestured for him to continue. 

“Well,” he started, “I imagine that you haven’t found anything about me before I turned fifteen. Would you be willing to oblige me for a moment, though, and tell me just how far back you tracked me?”

She nodded. “The earliest occurrence of one Spencer Reid was the call to his high school saying that he wanted to enroll there because his father moved for his job, and was taking his son with him. We have no record of your father past him appearing on the first day to fill out any last minute paperwork, and that is it. One thing we are very interested in is how you managed to hire an actor, buy a very good fake ID, and, this here is my favorite, buy an apartment, all when you were fifteen.”

Spencer smiled a little, reminiscing on his little stint in Vegas when he was younger, before he nodded again and began his story. 

“My father was a cop, and my mother was a therapist with a tonal eidetic memory. This means that she is able to remember everything she hears. Mix those two together, and you have a child born with an eidetic memory to a mother who didn’t really care for him as he couldn’t articulate how anything made him feel as a baby and to a father determined to make him into the prefect cop. From a young age, my father devised these “games” to teach me how to be a better cop. This included things such as teaching me how to escape a wide range of restraints, obviously, by restraining me, as well as games to test my memory and ability to escape dangerous situations. Since I was five, whenever we went out to eat, which was often, after I ordered I would have to close my eyes and tell him how many hats were in the room. Miss one hat, and I couldn’t have dessert. Miss more than one, and my food got put into a to-go container as I watched him eat, and I would have to find a homeless person outside and give them my food. He also liked to make me tell him everything I could about a person based on what I could see. What their occupation was, if they had money, if they were having family troubles, what they were going to do next, and any other apparent factors. Same rules as the hat game. He also routinely locked me in the trunk of his car, restrained, and we couldn’t go home until I escaped my ties and got out of the car while he was driving over speed bumps and rough terrain.”

The woman looked horrified by now, and he smiled dejectedly at her, because it only got worse from there. 

“As I mentioned earlier, I have an eidetic memory, so anything I see, I can remember, with picture perfect clarity, for years upon years afterwards. As evidenced by my numerous degrees, that made school fairly easy for me, but as my father always told me, no one liked a know-it-all, so I was never allowed to skip grades. Because of this, I got bored easily in school, and did not behave as well as I could have as a result. None of my teachers or fellow students liked me because I never paid attention in class, hardly ever turned in homework, and always got perfect scores on my exams. I don’t know if they thought I cheated to get the grades I did, and honestly, back then I didn’t really care. I only had one best friend back then. And funnily enough, I am Spencer Reid because of him.”

Spencer took a sip from the glass of water from the small table separating them before continuing on with his story. 

“I had a crush on my best friend from an early age, and one day I decided I wanted to tell him that I was in love with him. Now, me, in my prideful youth believed that of course he would love me back, so obviously I would have to kiss him sometime in the future. But, I had never kissed anyone before, so I developed a plan. A stupid plan, but I was a fifteen year old boy, so…plan. There was another boy in school that I knew was gay, and I was fairly sure I could convince to go on a date with me. I would use my dad’s truck and take this boy to the park one evening, and I would convince him to teach me how to kiss. This way I wouldn’t make a fool of myself when I kissed my actual crush.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” she interrupted, “you’re telling me that you had a crush on your best friend, assumed he would like you back, and to make sure you kissed him and didn’t mess up, you were going to convince some other random boy to kiss you first?”

“Yes.” He nodded and made sure not a crack of his amusement at her summary shone through his mask of seriousness.

“And all of this has to do with why you changed your name and need a new background?”

“All of this is vital to the story.” Again, mask. If he started laughing at his youthful idiocy, he wouldn’t stop for a while, and that would ruin any chance he had of starting a new life legitimately.

“Okay, okay. Go on.” She waved her arm and sat back into her chair, and he allowed himself one small crack of a smile before getting back to his story.

“Right, so, I asked my dad if I could borrow his truck to take someone out on a date, and he said no. Obviously I wasn’t going to let that stop me, though, so Thursday night I borrowed th-“

“Stole, you stole your dad’s truck.”

“Yes, okay, I stole my dad’s truck and used it to take my date to the park.” He held his hands up in defense, adding, “I was fifteen, I thought it was romantic!”

Her eye-roll showed him just how romantic she thought it was.

“Anyway, I was just about to make the moves on him when my dad shows up in his squad car and hauls us both out. He radios for a tow truck to take the truck back home, and he cuffs me. My date is freaking out, but my father tells him to start walking home. He, obviously, doesn’t want to, but his phone is dead, and my father tells him that he should have thought this through before going out with me, and if he wants to make it home in one piece, he better start walking while there is still a little light out. Then my father puts me in the back of the squad car and he drives me to the precinct, where he proceeds to book me and throw me in the cells for the night to ‘teach me a lesson.’ The next cell open already has one man in it, and my father only hesitated for a second before continuing on his mission and throwing me in the cell for the night. He signs his and my name in with the rookie at the desk, and the rookie starts to argue with my father about my where he put me, but then shuts up when he sees our same last names written down. My father leaves, and the rookie is on duty for another hour before the shift changes. The cop that comes in to replace him is known to be a layabout who should have retired ages ago, and the second he signs in, he leaves to go take nap in the break room for his whole shift, like usual. The rookie doesn’t want to leave me alone with the man in the cell, so he pulls a chair over next to me, and we stay up all night and talk. When the man falls asleep, the rookie whispers why he keeps one hand on his taser whenever the man moves towards me. Apparently the man was arrested for molesting four 13 to 17 year old boys, and is just staying there for the night before he gets transferred to the state prison, awaiting his sentencing. The cincher? You’ll love this. My father’s name was the one in the book as his arresting officer too.”

The woman’s horrified look is back en force, and he knows he still has one more hurdle to overcome before the story gets any better. 

“The next morning, my father comes in, chews out the rookie for wasting his time watching me when he could be doing better things, like sleeping, before dragging me out of the cells and driving me to school in the same clothes as the day before, without a backpack containing all my homework that I actually decided to do for once, and my notes for the two tests I had later that day. Once school was done, I took the bus home. When my father got home that evening, he called me downstairs, and I readied myself to deal with a lot of yelling, but when I came downstairs he hit me, and kept on hitting me while yelling about fags, how he refused to have a gay son, and if I even thought of another boy sexually ever again, he would kill me. That night was the first time I ever thought about killing myself, and I knew I never wanted to feel that way again, so for a week I planned. I _acquired_ an untraceable car from police impound I knew they wouldn’t notice if it went missing, I planned out my route using computers in the local library that were left logged in on others’ accounts, and I left two notes in two different places that ensured me two days of freedom before he started looking for me. I went to my best friend’s house, told him everything, kissed him, and left. I made my way to D.C., stopping in Las Vegas on the way. I was always really good at counting cards, so I took the cash I stole form the wallet of a some old white guy with no manners and went to town. I played the long game in poker, making around $50,000 or so in each of five different casinos. I drove away with $400,000. I made it to D.C., hired the actor to play my dad, and he helped me get the apartment and ID too. I emailed my best friend every day, and when he turned 18 and went to college, he made it so that my college was one of the ones that accepted him, and that is where he went. The End.”

By the end of the story, her eyes grew wide and unbelieving, catching on to what he wasn’t saying.

Her voice was soft and wondering, “Spencer, how long have you been in love with Burton Guster?”

He gave her a little smile as he said fondly but teasingly, “Oh…it should be going on a decade now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Hey guys, pretty long chapter for you this time. I have an _extremely_ short filler coming in next, with a little cliffhanger at the end of it, but no worries! I know you guys hate cliffhangers as much as I do! I like to think I'm not a cruel person, crappy ability to update in a timely fashion notwithstanding, so next time I post I will be giving you guys the next two chapters. And to those who say, just combine them! yeah yeah sorry guys, that's just not how I write. Anyways, we're getting closer to the end of what I have already written, so updates are going to become really spotty again soon, just giving you a heads up now. Hope you guys like my story, and have a nice day!


	12. Extremely Short Filler

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Real Title: Gus, If You Don’t Hear From Me, I’m Probably Dead (or getting a smoothie)  
Summary: Another little short filler. Spencer gets in a car.

Chapter 12 - Extremely Short Filler  
Real Title: Gus, If You Don’t Hear From Me, I’m Probably Dead (or getting a smoothie)  
Summary: Another little short filler. Spencer gets in a car.

They talked for a little while longer before the director called Gideon back in, and told him to come back in two days, and she would have her decision by then. Spencer still hadn’t told her his name, but he trusted that she could find it out for herself by looking into Gus’ history and discovering his best friend who disappeared when they were fifteen. 

Two days later

As he was exiting the building where he just finished a meeting with his advisor, he got a text from an unknown number telling him to get in the black town car parked in the fire lane right outside the door. Seeing as how that was not going to happen without a little more information, he texted back the stereotypical “Who is this?” He got a little police badge emoji as his response, so, hoping that it was the FBI director and not his father, he got in the car after texting Gus to tell him that if he wasn’t heard from in the next four hours to tell Gideon. Satisfied that that was ominous enough, he settled into the seat and waited to arrive at his destination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyo! *hides*  
So school was crazy, but I was hybrid-homeschooled in high school, so now that everything is being done from home I am actually back in the swing of things. I am posting the second small chapter right after this one, and writing some more again, but now I am also trying to write more for Finite Incantatem, so I might be jumping between the two updates-wise. It has been great to hear from you all, your reviews bring a smile to my face every time I see one. Have a great day everyone, and stay safe!!!


	13. Spencer Reid Is Born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Fixer fixes.

Turns out, it was the director of the FBI who texted him, or, rather, the man she called in to create his new background. Yay for not falling into a trap and being kidnapped by his abusive father! He texted Gus to tell him that he was fine as he stepped into the room of a different hotel on the other side of New York city, no less swanky than the last one. 

The director introduced him to the unassuming man standing next to her as the man who, and he quotes, “will resolve this situation.” She listed his qualifications as previously working for Homeland Security, the NSA, and the CIA, and very pointedly Did Not Name where he was working now. For Spencer to work at the FBI, they said that he would need a Social Security number, a previous address, and some semblance of family history to start off with, so with that they all sat down while the unnamed man got to work. 

He first created — and printed out with one of the small black boxes surrounding his computer — a Social Security number with a hidden flag on it, so if anyone ever ran it, the director herself would get a notification. They discussed things for a bit, and they all agreed that, since Spencer Reid technically first came into existence in Las Vegas, that would be where he was raised. It was also the only place outside of California that he could navigate with any certainty. Then the man went looking through records of anyone with the last name of Reid, in hopes that they could just build a cover story on top of an already existing family, to give it some credibility. They lucked out when they found a Mr. William Reid, married to one Mrs. Diana Reid, deceased. The wife was diagnosed with schizophrenia at an early age, but had to stop taking her medication when she got pregnant. She lost the child, but by then she had gone nine months without medications, in addition to the stress of childbirth, she just seemed to break. Mr. Reid tried to stay with her, but after ten years, he left her. According to the specialist, the family practically was made for them, and hardly anything had to be changed. He altered the birth record on file to say that one Spencer Reid was born to Diana and William Reid on October 12, 1981 at 1:28am. From there, the records now said that Spencer grew up with a schizophrenic mother who he took care of for fifteen years. His father abandoned them when he was ten, and for the next five years, Spencer took care of themselves and the house while getting through school, this being why he didn’t shoot through classes like he did after he turned fifteen. The police report said he came home one day after school, only to find that his mother had overdosed on her meds. The coroner ruled it an accident, saying she was probably trying to quiet the voices, and just kept taking more meds when the first ones didn’t act fast enough. After that, Spencer decided to run away because he didn’t want to be stuck with CPS until he aged out of the system. He raced through high school and then college, always finding someone sympathetic in the registrar’s office to fudge the records when they needed something from an adult. 

Now the FBI would be willing to accept him. The director assured him that they would overlook his home life from fifteen to eighteen due to his genius level intellect, and all that it could offer them. After that, the unnamed man packed up his computers and blinking black boxes into a regular looking suitcase before poking his head out the door, checking for something no one could see, and making his way towards the stairwell.

Meanwhile, the director and Spencer sat down and talked a little more. She told him about what the procedures were for hiring new people, and what training he would have to do at Quantico before he could become an actual agent. When he asked if he could be placed into Gideon’s division, she said she would make no promises, but there shouldn’t be any trouble with making that happen. They talked for another hour before the director got an alert on her phone and she had to usher Spencer out to the elevator, telling him there was another car waiting just outside the doors to take him back to his dorm. 

He got in the car and checked his phone, but finding no messages, he relaxed into the seat and contemplated this new turning point in his life, and what his future would hold because of his decision tonight. The car arrived and he got out, still thinking about what his life would be like from now on, and he wasn’t paying much attention as he walked to his room and unlocked his door. 

That is, until his light turned on without any action from himself to reveal one very angry looking Burton Guster.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer apologizes. Decisions need to be made. Partners worry.

After a lot of ranting on Gus’ part and apologizing on Spencer’s for such a random and scary text with barely a follow-up, Gus finally calmed down enough to hear what Spencer had to say. He was wary of Spencer joining the Bureau because he knew how much Spencer _Did Not Want_ to be a police officer when he was growing up, but after they talked he began to accept that his boyfriend was changing his mind due to conversations with Gideon and the Director. He couldn’t say he was happy about it, because he didn’t like that Spencer would be risking his life, but he knew that an important part of any relationship was that you shouldn't force your partner to change. Gus eventually fell asleep leaning against Spencer on his bed as his boyfriend’s gravelly-tired voice lulled him to sleep listing all of his rebuttals to Gus’ worries, as well as his own reasons for why he was beginning to think he could be a federal agent. 

The next morning, Gus woke up to find Spencer leaning against his side, propped up on one arm, just watching Gus. Once they managed to drag themselves out of bed they went and got breakfast before talking some more about what their concerns with all of this were, and what they were going to do to make sure they stayed together through all of this. The night before, Spencer had filled out his application at the hotel, so now all he needed to do was wait for it to make its way through the proper channels. If he gets accepted, he would have to either take a break from school for five months to get through Quantico training, or he would have to finish the two doctorates he was working on before he went to Quantico. 

Operating on the theory that Spencer would be hired, he and Gus went through their options and finally decided that Spencer should finish his two doctorates before he went to Quantico. By then, Gus should have finished his degree, since he was a senior right now, and when he got back they would find an apartment together. Currently, their relationship hadn’t made its way past making out and sometimes sleeping in the same bed stages, but they weren’t in any rush, so they decided that getting an apartment with one bed and a futon should be fine. Gus already had a job as a pharmacy salesman set up after he graduated, and the business had locations in both New York and D.C., so depending on if Spencer was placed with Gideon’s unit in D.C. or if he went back to New York after he became an agent, they would still be together either way. 

\- - - Two Weeks Later - - -

Spencer walked into his building after lunch and veered away from the path to the elevator to check his mailbox first. He had been checking it twice daily ever since he applied for the job, and was starting to stress over the lack of response. Someone up above must have finally decided to take pity on him because today there was a large orangish-yellow manila envelope shoved crookedly into his mail slot. He wanted to open it, but he promised Gus they would open it together, so he texted his boyfriend and then had to wait until his classes were done for Gus to answer. 

It was nearing 6 pm by the time Gus finally made it to his room. Spencer was just about to interrogate him because he knew Gus’ last class ended at 5:10, but promptly shut his mouth when he saw the two pineapple smoothies and slices of pizza in his boyfriend’s arms. Gus handed over a smoothie and slice of pizza to him, and they both set their food down on the table before facing each other. Spencer felt guilty because he planned on yelling at Gus for not being on time, even though he knew Gus was only trying to help and he was channeling his stress into misplaced anger. Gus knew his friend well enough to know that he was stressed, and while he knew food would help Spencer calm down, taking the time to get the food probably did not help the amount of stress his boyfriend was feeling. In the end, though, they knew each other so well that all they had to do was give each other a Look, and all was forgiven on both sides. 

“Alright,” Gus said as he gestured towards the envelope with one hand, “let’s hear what it has to say before you explode from anticipation. We can talk about what comes next while we eat.”

Spencer nodded, and nervously fingered the flap of the envelope. 

“Maybe we should eat fir-”, Gus interrupted his boyfriend before he could even finish his sentence. “No, I know how you get, open it now so you know. I know you have been stressing all day. Trust me, open it now and then we can talk.” Gus nodded at him as he glanced nervously between his friend and the envelope. Now that he could finally open it he was practically paralyzed with fear. 

“I can’t!” Spencer cried, “You do it!” He shoved the envelope towards Gus, waving it up and down erratically when he didn’t take it right away. 

Gus looked into his eyes, and whatever he saw made him nod and take the envelope from Spencer’s frozen fingers. 

“Alright. Here we go.”

He opened the envelope, pulled out the first piece of paper, and skimmed it, making sure not to move even one muscle on his face as he did so. 

“Well...” he said with a monotone voice, pausing for dramatic effect, “...it looks like you got in.”

Spencer jumped up and down and shrieked, and then promptly covered his mouth with both hands, eyes wide as he stared at Gus. 

Spencer put both hands up in front of him, as if to stop Gus from moving towards him, one hand with his palm facing Gus while the other formed a loose fist with his pointer finger up (as if to say ‘now wait just a moment’). “For the record, one, I most definitely did not just make the noise. That noise is not in my vocal range, and so therefore I did not just shriek that loudly nor that high. Two, I GOT IN! Boo yah, baby! Oh yeah! I go-ot ii-in. I goo-ot ii-in.” By now he was doing a little jig — jumping and dancing around in circles while pointing at the ceiling, shaking his hips as he went. 

Gus smiled fondly at him, his smile turning into full blown laughter as Spencer grabbed his hands, papers and all, and started spinning them around while jumping. Gus couldn’t stop laughing as he tried to get Spencer’s attention because he was getting dizzy. They eventually stopped, but Gus had to be helped into his seat seeing as how the room wouldn’t stop spinning, even after he closed his eyes and put his head on the table, groaning. 

Spencer was still doing a little happy dance, but stopped when Gus, with his eyes still closed and head down on the table, offered up his hand, still tightly clutching the papers. His arm was moving in little circles — probably like he imagined the room was — but Spencer eventually managed to pry the circling documents out of his clutch. Spencer carefully guided Gus’ hand down back down to parallel where his other was, braced on his thigh, before he went back to the mail to speedily read every word of every document as fast as he could. 

Overall, the envelope contained the typical general acceptance letter with a stamped signature at the bottom for the Director of the FBI. The second letter was actually signed by the Director, not stamped by her secretary or HR, and it contained his options the FBI was willing to offer him based on his special circumstances. Like he and Gus discussed a few week earlier, he could either put his schooling on hold now to go to Quantico, or he could wait until the end of the year. It also said that if he decided to go to Quantico, the FBI would talk to his school to ensure that he was still enrolled when he was finished, because he would have to miss a whole semester to complete his training. All of his work would be on hold for a semester, and he would have to complete his current doctorates before they placed him in whichever department he wanted to work in. On the other hand, if he completed his schooling and then went to the Virginia training facility, they would ensure that whatever position he wanted would still have be open to him by the time he completed his current doctorates. Either way, they promised that any more degrees he decided to take on after he started working for them would count as continuing-education, and the Bureau would pay for all of it. 

Other than that, the envelope held a pre-written form for him to send back with his decision, a host of medical forms for him to fill out, and two little welcome packets — one for the FBI and one for Quantico. Behind the medical packet was another, smaller, discrete white envelope that he originally missed, containing a few papers stapled together with a sticky note on top. The papers were his full fake background and family history printed out, and the sticky note told him to hide the papers once he was done, and also asked him to try to keep his family history as close to accurate as possible. The note finished with a sarcastic little quip telling him that they could alter his fake history, but they couldn’t change his genetic code that said he had a predisposition to glaucoma on his mother’s mother’s side. 

By now Gus had managed to sit up without leaning to the side or puking, and Spencer had finished reading everything in the envelope. They decided to eat before their pizza got cold and their smoothies got warm, and were silent as they ate. 

Spencer was working through a couple different thoughts at once while he chewed and slurped. One was if/how he would have to rearrange his schedule in order to complete his degrees. Another was how this was going to affect his relationship with Gus, where they would live, and how Gus’ work would be affected. 

Gus, on the other hand, only had one train of thought. How would this affect the likelihood that Spencer would get hurt? Regularly? He knew the whole purpose of Quantico was to make sure the agents were safe, and even if they both hated it, they both knew Shawn’s father’s training would be helpful. But that couldn’t stop his worrying. This would be his life now. Always worrying about Spencer — if he was safe, worrying about his cocaine-addict-like flailing about when he was onto something, his Harry Potter-esque saving-people-thing, and his utter lack of situational awareness to name only a few. 

They would have time to discuss all of their worries later. The decision letter wasn’t due for another two weeks in case he needed to put his affairs in order. 

By the time they were done eating they both separately, yet unanimously, came to the same decision — whatever they had to do, they would, as long as it would keep them together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note:  
Hiiiiiiiii. So...story here, heh heh. Guess who found this sitting around on their computer ready to be posted for months, and totally forgot about it? Yeah...fun times. Sorry! *hides*. Anyway, I kind of have this thing where I will only want to read others' stories, and then I will go on a writing crazy for a while before I go back to reading only again. I'm in my writing craze right now, but I have this story plus two others that I am working on right now, so I can in no way promise updates for a while. If they come, they come, but honestly I keep jumping between my three stories, and eventually I'm gonna hyperfocus on one of them and get a good bit done, but I don't know which one yet. We'll see. Anyway, have a great day everyone! Wash your hands, wear your mask, and stay safe my lovelies!


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